According to the most recent data from the World Health Organization, ten million people around the world were diagnosed with the cancer in 2000, and six million died from it. Moreover, statistics indicate that the cancer incidence rate is on the rise around the globe. In America, for example, projections suggest that forty percent of those alive today will be diagnosed with some form of cancer at some point in their lives. By 2010, that number will have climbed to fifty percent. Of all cancers, colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., while pancreatic cancer is the eleventh most common cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer death in both men and women. This grim scenario shows the great need for new cancer diagnostics and therapies.
Modem technology, such as that involving the use of hybridomas, has made available to researchers and clinicians sources of highly specific and potent monoclonal antibodies useful in general diagnostic and clinical procedures. For example, there are now therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer, such as HERCEPTIN® (trastuzumab; Genentech) for metastatic breast cancer and PANOREX® (endrecolomab; Centocor/Glaxo SmithKline) approved in Germany for the treatment of colorectal cancer.
Yet the most important challenge in fighting cancer, according to Dr. Leland Hartwell, Nobel Laureate and Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, remains the pursuit of early diagnosis. The Economist (Oct. 4, 2004). The more advanced a cancer is when diagnosed, the less likely it is that therapy will be effective.
Hence, despite the advances in cancer research, there remains a need for recombinant monoclonal antibodies useful for the early diagnosis and treatment of colon and pancreatic carcinomas.